BEDD #13: Feminazis and Complexity

Today, a history teacher at my school came into my Government class (which he doesn't teach) and decided to make some really sexist remarks. This teacher is known around school as a bit of a... fire cracker? He's an advocate of the TEA party and says outlandish stuff a lot, and everyone just kind of laughs it off. I've never taken a class with him, (I had a class with him my sophomore year, but my schedule was changed. Frankly, I thought he was pretty okay.) but some of my friends have and hate him with a passion. To be fair, some of my friends have taken his classes as well and were pretty fond of him. I ignore him most of the time. He calls me by my older sister's name. It's a good relationship.
Last year, things shifted a little for the worst. He's our school's track coach and has been historically... how to say this? unkind toward our reporters. He doesn't generally grant interviews, and when he does he is curt and borderline rude. I'm an easily agitated person, so I instantly took this very personally. When I covered Track and Field I knew it was impossible to write the story without interviewing the coach, so I tried to be gracious and as polite as possible. He was pretty incredibly rude, but did end up answering my questions so yayyyy. Later in the year, however, he nearly pushed our soft-spoken sports editor into a nervous breakdown by telling her she had to change the entire sports page less than 24 hours until deadline. (It didn't matter in the end because our journalism teacher calmly explained to him that he had no jurisdiction over our publication, and if he wanted more input on our sports reporting he'd have to be far more cooperative with our reporters from the get-go.) But this was a very dramatic incident, and soiled my few vestiges of respect for the man.
Then again, this fall he led our senior class around Washington, D.C. and planned a very spectacularly fun trip for us all. He knew a ton about the city, and even gave a small group of students (me included) a tour of Arlington Cemetery that was the highlight of the trip for me.
Today's incident, however, made my blood boil. I actually gagged a little as he explained that there are certain things "women just can't do." Take a hammer and a nail, for instance, and show it to a women. He challenged us to find any woman that could pound in a very durable class of nails. He said he was "sick of Feminazis demanding equality."
I sat in the class, trying to remain calm, while saying that I can't pound nail because no one's bothered to teach me. Society decided that those skills are not important for me to learn because of my genitals, and I'd be ridiculed and called "butch" if I expressed interest in learning the finer points of tool use or tried to work my muscles into the strength quality required for swinging a heavy hammer. It was the end of class, however, and the teacher didn't hear what I was saying. I didn't feel like yelling because I knew arguing with him was kinda pointless.
After class, I had a fellow (pretty awesome) student come up to me and say something along the lines of, "Oh, please keep going. Lay your feminism on me, I love this stuff." (He wasn't joking, either. It made my day.) The bottled-up emotions spurted out as a few shouted phrases about rape culture, but the anger passed. The little blogger-reminder that's growing in the back of brain made a little "today's topic" pinging noise and I tucked the rest of my thoughts away.
I tried to organize my feminist rant, but I ended up feeling/sounding like an idiot. There's still a lot for me to learn about gender issues, and I'm passionate about what I think is right, but I know people are complex. I know this teacher isn't the spawn of Satan, he's just a very traditional asshole ahem, gentleman who is doing the same things I am. He's fighting for what he thinks is right.
I happen to think he's wrong, and it hurts me greatly, but all I can do is live a life that I'm proud of, fight for gender equality in positive, constructive way, and ignore all the idiots who aren't going to change their minds anyway.
It's hard. (IT'S REALLY HARD. I'll preserve this bit from my earlier rant: WTF IS THE PHRASE FEMINAZI?! DO YOU NOT SEE THE IRONY OF NAMING A GROUP WHO IS FIGHTING FOR THEIR EQUALITY AFTER THE MOST FAMOUS EVIL GROUP OF OPPRESSORS IN THE WORLD?! DO YOU EARNESTLY THINK THAT WOMEN WHO DESIRE EQUALITY ARE OPPRESSING YOU?! YOU ARE A WHITE MAN IN THE MIDWEST, NO ONE IS OPPRESSING YOU. YOU ARE NOT OPPRESSED YOU HAVE NEVER FELT OPPRESSION ADLKF;ADF. ALSO I'm a middle-class white girl in the midwest. I have very little first-hand oppression experience as well. I recognize that. Ahem.)

So, anyway, I feel like I could keep thinking-through-the-keyboard on this subject because it's something I feel strongly about, but I think it's very not-black-and-white. Unfortunately, I must make my leave and get to sleep because I've got a crazy-early morning tomorrow. Fortunately, it's because I'm going ~downtown~ for a field trip! Ahhh nothing says Christmas like winter in Chicago to me, so hopefully tomorrow will be a wonderful day. Adios for now!